THE first real commoner to wed a King’s daughter for 450 years, Antony Armstrong-Jones was at the centre of the Swinging Sixties in London.

A womaniser with legendary charm and a fondness for handsome young men to boot, he was rarely out of the headlines. He once claimed to have driven from Kensington Palace to Windsor Castle in 12 minutes, according to his biographer Anne de Courcy.

He was a pioneering photographer and a passionate campaigner for the disabled.

But he will be chiefly remembered as the man whose marriage to the Queen’s sister Princess Margaret ended, after years of turbulent tales of drink and drug-fuelled infidelities, in the first royal divorce since Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled in 1540.

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Antony Armstrong-Jones was the first real commoner to wed a King’s daughter for 450 years

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Antony Armstrong-Jones was a pioneering photographer and a passionate campaigner for the disabled

Ennobled as Lord Snowdon after his marriage to Margaret, his louche, glamorous lifestyle with her and a set of famous friends, who included Peter Sellars and Noel Coward, made them style leaders.

If it moves, he’ll have it

A close friend

But his hunger for male and female company in bed destroyed both his marriage to Margaret and his second to television researcher Lucy Lindsay-Hogg.

A close friend observed: “If it moves, he’ll have it.” Snowdon was born in March 1930, the son of barrister Ronald Armstrong-Jones QC, who was from Welsh gentry, and society beauty Anne Messel, of Jewish banking stock.

At Jesus College, Cambridge he studied natural history, but quit after only 10 days.

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He was ennobled as Lord Snowdon after his marriage to Margaret

After failing his second year exams, he embarked on a career as a photographer in 1952, serving first as an apprentice under the court photographer, Baron, and then branching out on his own.

Working in Pimlico and unfashionable Rotherhithe studios in London’s Docklands, he photographed actors and actresses, including Laurence Olivier and Marlene Dietrich.

His first official royal job was the Duke of Kent’s 21st birthday but sessions with Prince Charles, Princess Margaret, the Queen and Prince Philip soon followed.

When he embarked on a romance with Margaret, his work gave him the perfect cover to slip in and out of royal residences without the press finding out.

He and Margaret were married in a glittering ceremony at Westminster Abbey in May 1960. Their first child, David, was born in November 1961 and the royal couple’s second child, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, in May 1964.

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Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret were divorced in May 1978

Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret: RARE photographs uncovered

Fri, January 13, 2017

English photographer, Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, commonly known as Lord Snowdon passed away aged 86. He was married to Princess Margaret from 1960 to 1978, we look back on their marriage through pictures

A celebrity photographer on a motorbike, Snowdon combined his job with supporting his wife in her royal duties.

But rumours that their marriage was in trouble began as early as 1967 and by the mid-1970s there was speculation about Snowdon’s romances with society ladies.

Margaret then began a romance with landscape gardener Roddy Llewellyn.

She would also find notes her husband had left in her books.

One was a list of “Things I hate about you”. Another, left in her glove drawer, read: “You look like a manicurist and I hate you.” They were divorced in May 1978. But Snowdon remained a royal favourite, taking many of the family’s portraits.